Fila Derrouge: Space Cowboy
by Jonn Wood
Summary: Who was that dreadlocked lady, anyway?
1. Honky Tonk Women

_Like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own.__  
_-Proverbs 26.17, NIV

The ship shook. 

The slim woman sitting in the pilot's seat ignored it. It had been getting steadily worse over the past few weeks. She knew, she _knew_, exactly what it was. It was an obscure and vital piece of machinery, tucked away behind three inches of hull and wiring, and she could get to it and replace it inside of fifteen minutes. She had smoked cigarettes that had taken her longer.

She just didn't have the money to.

Hopefully, that was about to change.

The ship trying vainly to get away from hers was no slouch, by any means, but hers was faster. And so, like a lioness closing in on her prey, she narrowed the gap. The men in the ship ahead of hers were making for, apparently, nothing at all. There was a backwater planet of no note nearby, but it was almost entirely desert.

"No place to hide," the woman breathed onto the monitor.

Truth be told, she liked it this way; the last few desperate bounds before the prey was bought down. She could imagine the scene on the ship; wild-eyes looks around, steam inexplicably pouring out of poorly-located vents, muscles, eyes, and eyes straining for every inch of speed they could get. She could see a sweating fat man in a red velour jacket yell into a comm panel "Ah cannae' _duuuu_ it, Cap'n!" in some strange mockery of a Core accent.   
And whatever that hypothetical man was doing, it wasn't enough.

It wasn't even close.

She put on some "last legs of a chase" music; an old folk song she had once heard. "Dun dun _dun_ , dun dun _land_ , dun me where duh _duh_ duh duuuunnn..."

* * *

The door was open. 

The slim girl in the doorway frowned slightly. If the cage door was open, that would mean Houdini was out again. If Houdini was out, and the door to the room had been closed, that meant he was probably still inside.

"If I were a hamster, where would I hide?" she murmured, tugging on one of her braids.

Nothing on the bookshelf. Nothing under the bed. Nothing in any of the drawers, which was just as well, because it would be really _weird_ to find her hamster in her underwear drawer.

She found him crawling out from under a pile of clothes, where he seemed to be yawning. Say, when's dinner? I'm starved. No, don't put me _back_ in there- 

The girl put him back in the cage, and leaned a book against the door. Then she leaned another. Then the Encyclopedia _Aardvark-Alliance_. Then she padlocked the door shut. That should hold for another few hours.

"Gorram it, why can't you just stay in your cage, like a good li'l hamster?" she growled softly. 

"Mira!" yelled her mother from the kitchen.

"I'm sorry!" she yelped automatically. Oh, wait, Mom couldn't hear her swearing in the kitchen. "I'm a-comin'!"

"Your pa needs his hammer back from the Jenkins," said Chastity Owens, as her daughter walked in. She was baking a cake. "Could you walk into town and get it, honey? Oh, and stop swearing."

And so Mira set off towards town, walking along the edge of the Owens smallholding or whatever the word was. Mira had never paid much attention in English. She kept one practiced eye on the bright speck in the sky indicating a ship entering atmo while she toyed with her braids and thought about career options. Professional hamster-hunter was out, and she doubted ma and pa would let her be an actress, and she didn't like math much. (Now it was in atmo, heading in the vague direction of town.) She wasn't too handy with a gun, and people's insides made her sick. (That second speck is a ship a few minutes behind, dependin' on atmospheric conditions and ship's construction.) She didn't have the patience to be a schoolteacher. (The first ship would hit town about the same time as she did.) She couldn't write. (The second one obviously in pursuit; it tried to drop below the descent line of the first.) Couldn't draw. (Even with the hurried descent, he probably wouldn't make it.) Couldn't even hammer nails properly. (Was it coming at her?) Farming was okay, but it was _so boring_. (Not if he pulled up. Could his engines make it?) It wasn't necessarily a i bad /i life(-not on that model-); it just wasn't (-coming _right at ME_-)

The ship screamed by, close enough for its jet wash-or was that rocket wash-to knock Mira down. She struggled up just as a dull thump resounded under her feet. 

"_Hoe-tze duh pee-goo_", she whispered. Her accent was terrible.

The side hatch opened just as she ran up to it, and a tall young woman emerged. Between the sun, and her platinum-blond dreadlocks, and the smoke curling 'round her ship, she looked like nothing less than a lioness, great and terrible. Then a breeze came up and blew the smoke away, and the sun went behind a cloud, and she was just a woman. A strong-looking woman, with a big gun, but a woman, nonetheless. 

"You're a _terrible_ pilot," was all Mira could think to say.

The woman's eyes finally focused on Mira. "Oh, hey." She reached into her jacket pocket, and pulled out a card. An old-fashioned _paper_ card, not data on a disc. It read "Fila Derrouge: Space Cowboy" with a cortex contact at the bottom.

"Space...?" 

"I'm a bounty hunter. What planet is this?"

"Luciferase".

"That's comforting."

"It's what fireflies use to make light."

"Huh," said Derrouge distantly. An explosion from town made them whirl. "Looks like the boys have landed."

"What boys?"

"The Hartly Boys; some of the most dangerous thieves this side of Miranda." She keyed in a sequence on a console in the ship. "I was chasing them, came in too fast."

"Not too fast, too i low /i . You can't make that kinda slope in a Leo at that speed! Who taught you how to fly?"

Derrouge stared bemusedly at the girl in front of her as the cargo bay opened and the loading arm dropped the hovercraft onto the ground. "I didn't expect to be taken to task for my piloting skills. What do you think you're doing?" 

"I'm drivin' the mule, what does it look like?" said Mira angrily.

"'Mule?' That's silly. How about 'the bike'?"

"Whatever. I have to get into town and help. If you shoot as well as you fly, you _need_ my help."

Derrouge considered. It was always a good idea to have your hands free. She mounted the bike as Mira turned it on. Due to the peculiarities of construction, she had to sit right behind the girl, her front to Mira's back. At least, until the shooting started. 

"Okay," she said into Mira's ear. "Let's roll."


	2. Righteous Renegades

_Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; spoil not his resting place..._  
-Proverbs 24.15, KJV

The bike slid round a corner, almost hitting a wall, before slewing off and heading in the right direction down a narrow alleyway.

"What was that?" yelled Derrouge. "Drift racing?"

"What in the Black is 'drift racin''"?

"I dunno! Something Core kids get up to! It 'rules the streets'!"

"Why are we yelling?"

"Duck!"

"What do ducks have to do with anythin'?"

"No, duck!" Derrouge pushed Mira's head down just before she got clotheslined. By a clothesline. "Keep your eyes on the road!"

"What road?"

"You know what I mean!"

They had come to an open area, where one of the banditos was hauling a woman across the square. The second he saw them, he wrapped his arm around her throat, and pointed his gun at the bike, yelling something about a "gorram cowboy". Mira pointed it straight at him.

"What are you doing?"

The Hartly's eyes widened as he realized that the bike was going to run him down. He threw the woman down and jumped to his right. Right in front of the bike.

The girl was clever, Derrouge admitted to herself. She had not only bluffed the gunman, she had successfully predicted his attempt to dodge, and twitched the hovercraft sideways at the last second, and she had figured out how to do that on a vehicle she had never seen before. She was a very good driver.

"She's an very good driver," Derrouge said out loud.

"I'm an excellent driver," said Mira, as she bought the bike to a stop. "Miss Alice, are you all right?"

The woman on the ground pushed herself up and rubbed her throat slightly. "I'm fine," she rasped.

"Do you have a gun?" said Derrouge as she hopped off the bike. She pulled some plastic cuffs from one of her vest pockets and tied up the unconscious man as Miss Alice nodded. "Good. Drag him into your house, lock the doors, and point it at his head until I or the law get back. Understand?"

She turned to head back to the mule. "Wait," said Alice. "He called you a cowboy. What are you?"

Derrouge pulled her pistol, spun it, and blew some imaginary smoke away from the mouth of the barrel. "Just a humble bounty hunter, Ma'am."

"How long have you been waiting to say that?" Mira demanded, a few minutes later.

"Years!"

There was another explosion somewhere up ahead, and a rifle shot bounced off the side of the bike.

"Someone's shooting at us!"

"Really? I couldn't tell over the sound of someone shootin' at us!"

Mira threw the bike back and forth, hoping to throw off whoever's aim.

"That's probably one of the Hartly boys! Alton, the sniper!"

"No sh-"

Just then, Alton's second shot caught Derrouge full in the vest. She wobbled slightly, then vanished over the side.

"Fila!" Mira yelled, bringing the bike to a stop. Alton, when she found him, was going to pay dearly. Derrouge hadn't given her shootin' lessons yet.

* * *

Jamie Hartly watched cautiously as a girl in a faded sundress coasted a small hovercraft into the town square and got off. Judging by the look on her face, she was powerful mad. 

"Why, little lady, what can I do yer for?" he asked courteously. Sometimes these Rim girls came to him begging to be taken off whatever forsaken rock they lived on. He usually dropped them off at the nearest planet with a decent brothel, whether they liked it or not.

Mira winced at the phrase, but kept on coming until she was close enough to lick his greasy moustache, close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath. "I want you off my planet!"

When Jamie stopped laughing, he stood up from the fountain, dusting off his white dress shirt. "You? Why should I listen to you?"

"Because I'm a-callin' you out. You killed Mira Derrouge, and I liked her. She didn't even teach me how to shoot properly!"

Jamie's black undershirt shirt stuck to him as he considered. She probably couldn't shoot to hit the broad side of a barn, and it would give him something to do while his brothers rounded up the rest of the townsfolk. (What was taking them so long?) Besides, hearing Derrouge was dead made him feel powerful generous.

"Well, little lady, I'm obliged to grant your request. Sort of a gentleman's challenge, you might say. Except neither one of us is a gentleman."

Mira waited patiently while he slapped his knee with his black beret. He replaced it on his shaven head, and pulled the revolver on his left hip. (They made him feel old-timey, like he was in a Western.) He opened the cylinder to show it was loaded, pushed the hammer forward, and tossed it to the girl. It filled her hands almost entirely, and she could barely lift it. His smile broadened; this would be easy.

"We're each gonna turn around and walk ten paces. Then we turn around, count to three, and draw. Got it?"

Mira nodded. She looked scared, and Jamie felt a pang of regret. She was a cute little filly, even if she needed a little more meat on her bones.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Jamie whirled. On a nearby rooftop stood that gorram Derrouge, and Alton, gun pointed at his head, Derrouge's arm around his throat. His glasses were askew, and his short, spiky blond hair was marred by a nasty cut. "Sorry, bro," he mumbled, in his slightly nasal voice.

"Aren't you going to tell that poor, vulnerable flower that you keep blanks in your left-hand gun just for idiots who want to duel?"

"You gon' pay for this, woman!" Jamie raged, leveling his other gun at the bounty hunter. She, to his surprise, laughed.

"You can't hit me with a revolver from there! Even if you were that accurate, you might hit Alton, and what might your mother say?"

"You leave her out of this!"

"If you surrender, I'll put in a good word with the judge. Might be able to reduce your sentence to three lifetimes instead of four."

"I may not be able to hit you," snarled Jamie, "but I can hit h-" His words cut off as he realized that the barrel of a gun was pressed to his throat.

"Why would you take advantage of a poor, innocent, naive young girl like li'l ol' me?" asked Mira, her hands not wavering at all. She pouted facetiously."I may not be good at shootin', but even I know that blanks still have some kick to them," she continued conversationally. "They can scar, can even kill, close enough. This close?" she shrugged, "Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure what it might do. But seeing as it's your gun, and your bullets, and may blow your throat right off, you've got to ask yourself one question." She paused. "'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

He didn't.

He dropped his gun and laid down on the ground with the skill of long-practice, and Fila came down from the rooftop, Alton in tow. And when everyone had been convinced to leave their homes, they swept the bounty hunter up onto their collective shoulders. The Hero of Pallet, the woman they called Fila.


	3. Hard Puncher

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise...  
-Proverbs 6.6, KJV

"You live in Pallet Town?" Fila asked incredulously.

The citizens of the town had been more than happy to help Derrouge get the Leo a few feet in the air. She and Mira had rigged up the mule so it could very slowly pull it to the nearest, best, and only repair shop for miles; Titus' Garage. Titus himself was dealing with some business on the other side of the planet right now, but leave your spaceship with his assistants and it should be repaired shortly.

"No, I live just outside of Pallet Town." said Mira. "Why, is it a funny name?"

"No, not really." she was quiet for a few seconds. "What's a 'punk'?"

"Wha?"

"You said 'Do ya, punk?' back there. What is it?"

"Just something I saw in an old movie."

They were spared, mercifully, further conversation by their arrival at Titus'. A well-built, dark young man about Mira's age came out in overalls, wiping his hands on a rag. Derrouge reckoned this was Avery "Ace" Smith, the understudy. There were a few other well-built young men working around the shop, which Derrouge also looked upon with interest. They looked back, and Fila wished she had changed out of her bulletproof undershirt into a tube top or something. Wait until they got a load of her abs.

"Hi," said Mira.

"Hi," said Ace.

There was an awkward silence.

"And I'm Fila," said Fila, sticking her hand out. "Pleased to meet you. Can you fix my boat?"

"Oh, I know who you are," replied Ace. "I've seen the news reports on the cortex." Fila blushed. "And, yes, I probably can. What seems to be the problem?"

Derrouge explained.

"No. No I can't. That part is hard to find, and the person that knows most about it is halfway around the world."

"When does he get back?"

"About a week."

"Great."

"I do have some good news; you're going to pay a bunch more money on your ship insurance!"

"What?"

"According to local laws, the Hartly's ship is legally yours. You caught them, and we have more than enough eyewitness testimony to convict them without confiscatin' it as evidence. Judge Reinhold wanted me to tell you."

"Speaking of legal matters, how long can your lawman hold the Hartly's in jail for me?"

"Until you need to leave."

This riveting conversation was largely missed by Mira, who had wandered over to persuade one of the techs to just let her sit in the cockpit of the ship he was working on. Please? Pretty please? Ace's glances didn't go unnoticed by the bounty hunter.

"Just talk to her."

"Pardon me?"

"I can see you like each other. What was it, a proposal? Did you try to sleep with her?"

"What? I-no-" the young man stammered. "I don't see how is this any of your business."

"That's a shock," said Derrouge, with a grin that would've shamed a shark. "I'm just nosy."

Ace scowled and turned to the communications panel. After a few minutes of twiddling dials, he got Titus, who appeared to be a tall, skinny blond guy with big teeth.

"Who's the hot chick?" he asked.

Ace described the part, and Titus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I doubt there's one on the planet. I can order one from here, but the next cargo shipment to Pallet isn't for a few days. Looks like the lady is stickin' around."

"Great."

"Titus out."

There was a yell as Mira barked her shin on something. Fila hurried over while Ace hunted around for the first aid kit. Fila fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and pressed it in the wound as Ace came over shaking a can. She moved the handkerchief as he sprayed. The foam darkened slightly from its white to match Mira's skin tone, and the antibiotics began working through the girl's bloodstream.

Another awkward moment, a boy and a girl looking into each other's eyes.

Fila coughed. "Right, I'll be leaving you two lovebirds."

"I have to go too," said Mira, rising to her feet. "I have to see a man about a hammer."

"And I," declared Fila, "have to see a man about a soul."

* * *

"Hello, my child," said Father Cornello. "I've something of yours in my yard."

The church in Pallet was not exactly large. It could barely hold a decent bingo game most times, and on holidays was usually overcrowded. Still, the yard was large enough to hold the Hartly's ship. The padre watched Fila as she circled the _Victorious_.

"You might want to go in," he said gently.

"Or, not," replied Fila. "These brothers are crafty. They probably rigged up a booby trap." She picked up a long stick, gingerly approached the door, and poked at the lock, immediately diving to the ground as the hatch opened.

Cornello looked at the trembling, prone form on the ground in front of him. "I don't think you're dead," he observed bemusedly.

Fila got up and dusted off her clothes with the air of a cat after a fall. She then proceeded with a cursory inspection of the ship. It was a four-man blockade runner, with not much room for cargo and number of useful little nooks in case of an inspection. Everything was still working, but she didn't have the skill to remote-pilot a ship off the planet.

While she was pondering, Cornello came up to talk to her. "You look troubled, my child. Would you like to confess?"

"Oh, sure, Father. I disarmed and concussed three dangerous thieves and killers, preventing them from possibly killing dozens, all in the service of the law." She smirked. "I've been a _real_ naughty girl."

* * *

Mr. Jenkins congratulated Mira on her part in the rescue. He was just using the hammer to nail some loose boards, but would be done in a few moments. You just see if Mrs. Jenkins is done with her pie.

She was.

Mira absently chewed the blueberry pie. It was excellent. just soft and tangy and chewy enough to melt in your mouth and it made her want to throw up.

"I like pie," she whispered.

"What was that, dear?" said Mrs. Jenkins.

"Nothing," said Mira. She fell forward, and her head hit the surface of the desk she was sitting at with a soft 'clunk'.

It wasn't the pie. It was everything, the same thing, day in and day out. Mira felt the desire to see new horizons, not just the same one from a different place. She felt like she would just scream, and see how they liked that. Just scream and scream and scream and scr-

The angst passed.

"Dear? You're sweatin'?..."

Mira raised her head slowly. "I'll be fine." She took a deep breath, managed a faint smile. The sweat dripped slowly off her forehead, onto the table. "Mr. Jenkins done with that hammer yet?"

* * *

"Hello, Miss Derrouge," said Sheriff Daniels. As a courtesy, he took his heels off the desk.

"Afternoon, Sheriff," said Fila, looking around. Plaster walls, steel bars, the deputy was busy looking at dirty pictures on the cortex. He had barely looked up when she came in.

_This place wouldn't stand up to a stiff breeze,_ thought the bounty hunter. She thought about the deputy. _Probably a lot of other stiff things, though._"Sheriff, why didn't anyone stand up to the Hartlys?" she asked. "There were three of them, and a few hundred of you! I may not be good at math, but I know that comes to-carry the two, times five-_outgunned_."

Daniels stroked his moustache meditatively. "We're peaceable folk here, Miss Derrouge. It's a quiet world, out of the way, but we like it. Not much trouble, and we're certainly not used to dealing with the sort o' bloodthirsty customers who patronize your profession on a daily basis."  
Fila tried to follow the line of metaphors, got lost, and made it back to reality just in time to see Daniels lean forward and say "I take it you're here about your fee."

"You...took it...right." How the frak did these Rim folk manage to keep these hokey pearls falling from their lips all the time? It was like they had a really good scriptwriter or something.

"We don't have it."

Fila blinked. "What?"

"We don't have the reward." Daniels bought the page up on the holo for Fila to see. She whistled. "That's a lot of zeroes."

"You'll never collect!" called one of the Hartlys.

"The entire planet doesn't have this much money. You'll have to get your reward...here." The planet Daniels bought up wasn't particularly far away, and Mira figured it was just a few days travel. A week, maybe, in the Leo.

"Ma will come for us!" cried the same voice.

"Okay, that's not too bad," Mira murmured, tapping on the desk. "That's the nearest world anyway where the brothers can stand trial."

"You're screwed!" said another voice.

"What about, I dunno, _here_?" said Daniels.

"Some law that states that they have to be tried in the order their crimes were committed. Besides, by the time the paperwork gets through, they could be getting their fourth life sentence." Derrouge sniffed. "Alliance bureaucracy at it's finest."

"Do you know what happened to the last person that got between our mama and her boys?" said the third.

"Pardon me," said the deputy, "but what in the Black are they talkin' about?"

"The famous Hartlys," Derrouge replied. She strutted over to the cage and narrowed her eyes at the boys. "Led by Ma Hartly, one of the deadliest women in the black." She cocked her head. "Besides a little girl I saw in a bar once. She'll come down like a hurricane on anyone who so much as lays a finger on her boys." One of the criminals took a swipe at her, and a second later was nursing a sprained wrist. The bounty hunter had her shark's grin on again. "And don't think I wouldn't relish the oppourtunity."

* * *

The memory chip had been a gift from her father, a cheap birthday gift. It wasn't very large, or durable, but it could play music well enough. Mira tossed the hammer to herself as she walked, tracing slow, lazy arcs through the sky.

That was the third time this month.

The attacks had started a while ago. She wasn't how long ago, but she knew that every single one felt like she had just walked to close to an overclocked gravity drive. She had always managed to hide it, but it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt.

While no mind healer, Mira figured it had something to do with the powerful vortex of teenage angst, frustrated sexual desire and lack of a clear goal that was her life. Maybe if she just got a good lay. If only Ace realized tha

"Nice grocery y'all have," said Fila from behind her. "I got a pound of apples for only five dollar."

Mira dropped the hammer on her foot.

"Sorry about that," said Fila, grinning. "Old habit."

"How did you sneak up on me in the middle of the gorram road?" Mira yelled from somewhere around the older woman's thigh. "And you're carryin' groceries. How in the-"

"Trade skill. It'll stop hurting in a few seconds."

Mira glared up at her, and wished for a gun.

As Derrouge explained, Mira's parents had invited her in for dinner. A few minutes to freshen up-which, in Mira's case meant disposing of her bloody handkerchief, buttoning her vest and putting her dreadlocks up-at the Leo, and they made it just in time for supper.

Dinner was some protein and grains, Mira generously contributing some of her apples to help make pie. Chastity Owens was an excellent cook, and Fila could see where Mira got her eyes from. She clearly got her strength from her father, a somewhat portly man who had never finished fixing the fence. The pie was finished just as Fila helped her hostess put the dishes in the sink, and Mr. Owens loosened his belt. They had just started negotiations, Derrouge borrowing their cortex to call up some legal documents, when she got a wave.

"Huh," she said, poking at her comm.

"What? What is it?"

"Mrs. Owens, I'd like to speak with you and your husband alone."

Mira was thrown into her room with a slice of apple pie, and Mira walked over to the window. She stared into the darkness for a long time.

"I meant to put it in the wash."

"What?" said Mrs. Owens.

Fila turned away from the window. "My handkerchief. I put it in the DNA analyzer instead of the wash. It had Mira's blood on it, from when she cut herself in the garage. The analyzer automatically checks the nearest open locations of the cortex for samples to compare. Your DNA was in the town clinic's system. Liver transplant a few years ago, right?"

"Always did drink too much," smiled Mr. Owens ruefully.

"It didn't match," said Fila.

Outside, Mira stifled a gasp, and inside there was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

"Where did you adopt her?" said Fila softly, sitting down in a nearby chair.

Mrs. Owen's mouth worked silently, while her husband muttered "When we took on our second honeymoon." He sighed, leaned back. "Mira, you might as well come out." 

Mira stood up, and slowly opened the door. Strangely, the floor seemed to have been tilted to the left, making her stagger as she approached her p-her _foster_ parents.

"Why," she rasped, throat suddenly dry.

"Mira, we wanted-" Her mom stopped. "We-"

"Why didn't you _tell me?_" The floor had stabilized, but her vision had narrowed to a long tunnel with Fila and her parents dimly visible at the end. She heard something rushing in her ears.

"You weren't _ready_-" Her dad said, not looking her in the eye. Her mom was wringing her hands, staring at a lamp.

The bounty hunter decided that was a good time to interrupt the the tableau. "And that's not even the best of it." She glanced down at her pad. "Your blood matched another for a common ancestor. Two, actually."

"Whose...?" whispered Mira. Not the Hartlys. Please no.

"Mine," said Fila, and grinned. "You're my little sister."  



End file.
